Category: technology

A person’s location can be hugely revealing. Here are some tips on how to mask the information your computer and phone transmit automatically. In the course of writing my book, Dragnet Nation, I tried various strategies to protect my privacy. In this series of book excerpts and adaptations, I distill the lessons from my privacy […]

“Taking shortcuts doesn’t mean shortcutting the end result,” TV chef Sandra Lee tells us. And she certainly knows a thing or two about success. After all, as American mathematician, computer scientist and philosopher Rudy Rucker reiterates, “Traditional science is all about finding shortcuts.” Knowing the correct shortcuts will make work easier and, in many cases, more […]

It was the battle of the boxes at the 2013 E3 expo (Electronic Entertainment Expo). Microsoft kicked off with the introduction to their new Xbox One and Sony kicked back with PlayStation 4. Sony stole the show by announcing there will be no used game restrictions or 24-hour check-in requirements with the PS4. Nintendo introduced new […]

Phones have come a long way since Innocenzo Manzetti played around with the idea of a “speaking telegraph” in 1844. Development of the landline telephone came in leaps and bounds but it is the mobile phone that truly captured a global audience. The first mobile phones were produced by Bell System for use in cars only, introduced […]

It merited just one line in U.S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in February 2013, but it could change the very nature of manufacturing, alter the global trade balance, and potentially spark a new industrial revolution. It is something known as 3D printing, which Obama claimed “has the potential to revolutionize the […]

The easiest and most affordable way to make your computer run faster is to add more DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory). But there is a limit to the amount of Dynamic RAM you can add to a Windows-based PC. So, how much DRAM can you use on the Windows 7 or on the Windows 8 operating […]

A gaming computer with 48K memory? That’s not a typo – it’s not meant to be 48GB, it is 48 kilobytes. The memory size of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum way back in 1982. You actually had a choice of the ZX with 16 kB of RAM for £125 or with 48 kB for £175 (or $100 […]

The first public television pictures were transmitted in 1926. The first TV interview was made with Irish actress Peggy O’Neil in April 1930. The first televised sporting event was a Japanese elementary school baseball game, broadcast in September 1931. The first daily broadcast was started by the BBC in November 1936. The first TV commercial […]

There are some funny words in the computer world. A brouter is a network bridge and a router combined in a single product. A glyph is a graphic symbol that provides the appearance or form for an alphabetic or numeric font. (“Glyph” is from a Greek word for “carving.”) A moof monster is a vague […]

The keyboard layout as we know it today was invented by Christopher Sholes in 1868. His first typewriters had the letters arranged in alphabetical order but he changed it to the QWERTY arrangement. In 1873, he contracted the Remington Arms Company to build and market the typewriter. It did not sell well for the first […]